


Her Eyes

by the_authors_exploits



Series: Pack Family [2]
Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Gen, M/M, samkie - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-21 15:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7392196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_authors_exploits/pseuds/the_authors_exploits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><br/>"You have her eyes."<br/>Sam doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't; he turns away and presses his fingers to the corner of his eyes. He fights tears. "Do I really?"<br/>Frankie brushes a hand lightly across Sam's back. "Yeah," he whispers. "You do."</p><p>Or, Sam and Nathan find a picture of their mom</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [destielydia](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=destielydia).



“Come on, I’ve got a surprise for ya!”

Nathan brightens, shifting his shoulders in the oversized jacket; it’s Sam’s jacket, which used to be Frankie’s before he apparently ‘grew out of it’. “Really?”

Sam nods, jerking a finger over his shoulder as he bends down to retrieve his backpack. “It’s outside, and it couldn’t wait until Christmas.”

Nathan tips his head to the side; this all seems very suspicious. “Why is it outside?”

Sam’s grinning down at him, quiet, and Nathan can see the gears in his head turning. “I couldn’t bring it in here!”

Despite his initial suspicions, Nathan follows Sam’s path over the compound’s rooftops, outside onto the street, and into an alley way across from the orphanage. There, awaiting patiently, is Frankie’s bike.

“Well?” Sam spreads his arms out. “What do you think?”

Nathan looks around the bike. “It’s Frankie’s bike.” He eyes Sam. “Did you steal it?”

“No, baby bro; appreciate the faith in me though.” Sam leans on the seat. “He’s letting me borrow it for tonight.”

Nathan tips his head to the side; he’s still suspicious. “Why?”

“That’s where the real surprise comes in: I found Mom’s stuff.”

Nathan doubts Sam would lie to him about that; his eyes grow wide and he steps forward excitedly. “Wait, really? Where is it?”

“Right across town; let’s go pick it up tonight!”

“You mean steal it?”

Sam tips his head to the side; yeah, it is stealing. And he knows that’s bad, and he knows he shouldn’t be teaching Nathan this. But at the same time, it seems wrong to go alone; this is a part of Nathan’s life, his past. He should be a part of this. “Well,” Sam deflects. “It’s not stealing if it was ours to begin with it.”

Nathan smiles knowingly, shaking his head. “And if we don’t get caught?”

Sam throws his arms out. “Exactly! Not stealing.”

Nathan likes these times they spend together; he wishes he could respect the nuns, but that place isn’t home. Home is with Sam, climbing fences and cataloguing artifacts in an old mansion out in the middle of nowhere; home is with Sam, scanning through the library’s selection of titles; home is with Sam, when Frankie is sipping a beer on the couch and Sam is helping him with homework on the coffee table.

So, while he knows what they’re doing is illegal and he could very well get in trouble with the nuns, and he knows he could easily tell Sam no and Sam would listen…Nathan doesn’t want to say no. He wants to do something dangerous, something he knows the nuns would disapprove of. It gives him a sense of control that he hardly ever has, and he gets excited just thinking about it.

So he climbs on the back of the motorcycle, grips tight to Sam’s backpack, and fights giggles as they swerve around corners; when it comes to breaking into the huge house, it’s just more shenanigans with his older brother. Sam hands him a light, and they creep around the artifacts; Nathan points out interesting ones to Sam, and Sam asks him to categorize them. Nathan does, expertly so, and Sam’s lopsided grin makes Nathan beam.

Finding their mom’s stuff is a little harder; there are boxes everywhere, dust collecting upon every surface, so many places to hide a set of journals and clothes and items; Nathan thinks they might be at it all night, but Sam is ever encouraging.

“This isn’t it, is it?” Nathan asks, holding up a dusty off white journal; he knows their mom used white journals, but maybe the dust and time as discolored them.

Sam comes over and takes the journal in hand; he looks skeptical, opens it, shakes his head. “Nah; sorry, Nathan. We’ll just keep looking.”

Nate isn’t as naïve as Sam would like though; he thinks he sees a brief flicker of uncertainty on Sam’s face, and then he remembers how young Sam was too when they lost her. He wonders what Sam remembers.

They do find their mom’s stuff, tucked into one single box beneath a table; Nathan finds it, pulls a journal out. There’s a piece of paper tucked into the pages, and he tugs it out as Sam asks curiously _“What’ve you got there?”_

Both seem to freeze together as the paper turns into a picture, somewhat faded, of a young woman; she has beautiful long hair pulled back into a messy bun. Her eyes are slender, square, wide and happy as she smiles while holding a sloth in her arms; the corners of the picture are worn, faded, but the person is unmistakably Cassandra Morgan.

“Is that…”

“Mom,” Sam breathes, and Nathan clutches the picture tighter; he doesn’t want to damage it, but he won’t let go of it for a while.

The unfortunate thing is that the mansion wasn’t deserted; Sam had said he’d staked it out for a few days, but there’s an old woman with a gun there, and she says she’s called the cops. Around Sam’s bulk, Nathan sees her gun waver, her hands shaking; maybe the place had seemed deserted, because it appears this woman hasn’t left in ages.

“Just let him go; this was all me. I brought him here so we could see our mom’s stuff, that’s it.”

Nathan should’ve known Sam would do something like this; at least Nate has Frankie and Kyle on speed dial. He can get Sam out of this mess real quick, for sure.

“What?” the old lady asks, and Sam glances briefly at his brother.

“I’m telling you this is all on me.”

“No; your mother’s stuff?”

Sam points to the journal Nathan was forced to hand over; “Yeah, that’s our…mom’s stuff.”

She actually lets them go, with the journals and the shirts and the picture; she waves them away and stands—and collapses. The sirens grow closer, and Sam curses because she’s dead; Nathan’s in shock, but he listens when Sam tells him they have to run. And they do, through the boxes and dusty air, past the artifacts, out a window and down the side of a chimney, running circles through the yard away from the cops. They jump a fence, climb onto Frankie’s bike, and races into the night.

Frankie’s still up, sipping a beer and flipping through a magazine while his shitty TV plays in the background, softly; outside, the pavement is wet, the flickering street lights illuminating the water. He told Sam he’d wait up for him, so that’s what he’ll do. Frankie puts the bottle to his lips when the pounding starts at the door; it’s somehow familiar, a pattern he’s grown used to, but laced with panic.

He stands and hurries to the door, one hand on the door knob and another reaching for the gun on the counter by the door; he presses his eye to the peephole, and he spots a pair of wet rats standing shivering on his doorstep. He swings the door open immediately, smiling encouragingly when Sam looks up at him; water drips off his bangs, the rain from earlier having caught them on the road, and Frankie is on full alert for the hidden panic in Sam’s eyes.

“We’re in a bit of trouble, Frankie.”

He didn’t have to say anything to begin with; Frankie swings the door wide open, and as the brothers shuffle in Frankie sticks his head out and glances around for anyone suspicious. He doesn’t see anyone and he closes the door, sliding a series of locks in place; when he turns, Sam is standing close and Nathan is curled on the couch, clutching a journal close. Frankie settles a hand on Sam’s shoulder; the younger boy is shaking, but he doesn’t know if it’s the water and cold or fear. Frankie runs his hand down Sam’s arm.

“What happened?” he speaks lowly, not wanting to startle Sam or disturb Nathan. “Tell me what happened.”

Sam steps closer unconsciously. “I…I found our mom’s stuff.”

“Right, yeah, you told me before you left; was it not your mom’s stuff?”

Sam shakes his head. “A lady was there; she…she died…”

“What?”

“And there were cops there!” Sam is getting more hysterical as he keeps talking. “Nathan can’t get in trouble, Frankie! He’s already in trouble with the nuns; I don’t want him going down like I did, Frankie, you gotta help us!”

“Shh, shh,” Frankie pulls him in for a hug, and Sam stills. “Of course I will, Sammy boy; dontchu worry about a thing. I’ll take care of it.”

Later, when both have warmed after a shower, and Nathan is dozing on the bed dressed in a pair of Sam’s clothes, Frankie tugs the blanket tighter around Sam’s shoulders; he takes a seat on the coffee table and looks his friend straight in the eyes.

“I’m gonna talk to Kyle; we’ll take care of this, ok?”

Sam shrugs, nods; Frankie nods and goes.

He does take care of this, with Kyle’s help; some well-placed words and dollar bills, and the cops completely forget about the two kids they saw at the old lady’s place. It’s a bit more difficult to smooth things over with the nuns; Kyle poses as Nathan’s uncle who came early in the morning and signed Nate out of the orphanage for the day. It’s not hard to forge paperwork, and if none of the nuns remember talking with him they can’t disprove him.

They, oddly enough, don’t talk about that again between them—Frankie and Sam. Frankie’s fine with that; Sam talks with Nathan about it. Frankie catches them sometimes, head bent over an old journal; he backs away quietly. It’s not something he should be privy to, and he understands that.

But it is a few years later, several months after Kyle’s funeral, that Frankie finds a picture tucked in the back of a drawer in the kitchen. They’re packing together, for the move to the better apartment Frankie bought, and Sam is pulling cups from a cupboard.

Frankie scratches at his tattoo, the ink still healing, and looks at the picture in his hand; there’s a woman, looking worn but happy, sitting on the front porch of a big house with a little boy in her lap. “This your mom?”

Sam turns quickly, shock on his face; he steps closer and looks at the photo over Frankie’s shoulder. It’s a faded piece of paper, one Sam’s kept hidden for years. One of the pictures they’d discovered in that collection they’d pilfered all those years ago.

“Y…yeah, that’s my mom.”

Frankie looks at the woman, all smiles and strong cheek bones and gentle eyes; he doesn’t move, knowing Sam is studying the picture too. "You have her eyes."

The words, whispered quietly into the still air, takes Sam off guard. He doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't; he turns away and presses his fingers to the corner of his eyes. He fights tears. "Do I really?"

Frankie brushes a hand lightly across Sam's back. "Yeah," he whispers. "You do."

In their new apartment, Frankie unboxes a picture frame; it’s several frames fitted together to make a large collage and he hands it to Sam who arranges a series of photographs in it. A picture of Nathan feeding an elephant at the zoo, Sam holding the cup of peanuts; Frankie with Nathan on his shoulders in the grocery store; Sam sleeping in Tyron’s passenger seat, Frankie’s jacket across his shoulders; Cassandra Morgan holding a sloth and smiling, another with her on the front porch and Nathan in her lap.

They hang the collage up in the hallway, the only personal decorations they put up; Sam smiles when he walks passed it every day, and Nathan sometimes stops to say good morning to their mom.


End file.
